Devices that intercept calls and text messages and dig into data stored on your mobile phone are being marketed to police departments across the United States “as being perfect for covert operations in public order situations.” Or, as the ACLU’s Privacy SOS blog puts it: protests.

The release of Twitter’s first “Transparency Report” comes with the revelation that the microblogging site has received more government requests pertaining to its users’ accounts in the first half of 2012 than in the entirety of 2011.

Give us your tired and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, because we already have an abundance of selfish, mean xenophobes. Polls show that most Americans support Arizona’s new immigration law, which makes it criminal to accept the Statue of Liberty’s invitation. (continued)

The White House is set to announce a new screening regimen that will target passengers based on intelligence about suspected terrorists. Currently, everybody from a list of 14 countries gets special attention. The intel about terrorist suspects had better be more nuanced than dark-skinned or Muslim, or we may just have to go running to the ACLU.

If new rule changes go through, the FBI will be allowed to open national security investigations without evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, the agency could pursue cases based on profiles of Americans it deems likelier to commit crimes such as terrorism. The policy would be in keeping with the Bush administration’s dragnet, fact-phobic approach to terrorism; the president himself has been critical of profiling.

Speaking on Fox News on Tuesday, conservative radio host Mike Gallagher proposed installing a Muslims-only line at U.S. airports. (Watch it) Even scarier, the studio audience broke into applause.This is happening in real-life America, folks.